Saturday, March 3, 2007

Our previous recovery systems manager, Guan-Lu, let Vitali take over this role. So, first the new work plan was composed to include tasks that need to be done by the end of spring and the deadlines for each of the tasks.

All the previous work done by the recovery systems team was organized and documented. Also the air brake design was finished. In particular, lug analysis was carried out for the joints on the air brake supports. What is left is to prepare the bill of materials for the air brakes and find an appropriate electro-magnetic actuator for the air brake release mechanism.

This Friday, Vitali and Angela had a meeting to discuss parachute design. We've formulated objectives to be accomplished by next week. We are going to keep researching parachute design and performance analysis. We will rely heavily on the book that Guan-Lu purchased for our team "Parachute Recovery Systems" by T. W. Knacke. This is an excellent book by the way, that provides us with very useful information. Also, the parachute design criteria list was composed. This list is to be used to add relevant information about the parachute design. Lastly, we found it necessary to try to find information on how cargo parachutes are deployed (this is not an easy task as the information of this kind is very scarce).

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Yesterday at our weekly team meeting, Winnie presented the sparkplugs that just came in. They are NGK models of various types (4 in all) ranging from cheap to high performance. We were planning on trying out all 4 with the igniter we've designed to see how they work, but we now realize they have different threads. Not sure how Winnie will decide to deal with that yet.

I've continued to work on the test site application - the form is filled out, and I've been talking every couple of days with the campus planning office. They pushed back our review meeting till March 8, which is next week, so not too bad. Provided they approve our application I think we can have the site erected by the end of March, which should coincide nicely with the procurement of other items needed for testing.

Finally, here's a photo of our meeting. We book the Dean's meeting room - it's got a nicer table and chairs than the other meeting rooms, although we have to bring our own projector.

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